


little adjustments

by hylander (orphan_account), nutriscii



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Future Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Protective Parents, but what else is new, everything in canon is still canon, i don't know how to write fluff sorry i tried, lucas is grumpy and emotionally constipated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/hylander, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutriscii/pseuds/nutriscii
Summary: It’s stupid to be mad at your husband. They’re not that kind of couple anyway. They’ve reached the unattainable level of wholesome that their friends dream about. High school sweethearts turned husbands, two successful jobs, a flat reasonably big for the three of them and not too expensive, a baby, and above all, eight years of marriage and not a scratch, not a crack, not a fight — that’s just how perfect it all is. They’re the Lallemant-Demaury.So who cares if Eliott is a little late?OR; Eliott is late and Lucas isn't as happy as he lets people think he is.
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 6
Kudos: 218





	little adjustments

**Author's Note:**

> it's been a while since i posted anything on here but i wanted to try something new 😊 i might turn it into a multi-chapter fic later, so maybe this oneshot will serve as some kind of introduction. In any case, i hope you'll like it and thank you in advance for reading 🤗💕

**THURSDAY, 17:21**

“What do you mean ‘I should go’?”, Lucas repeats, frowning to himself as he stands up from the couch. There’s a sound in the background, on the other end of the line, like a door closing and people talking, and Lucas presses his phone even tighter against his ear. He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that _at all_. “Eliott, seriously, you promised you’d find a way to leave early!”

“I’m sorry, it’s just a little delay, I swear,” Eliott insists, nearly pleading. Quiet footsteps take him further away from the voices and Lucas huffs in frustration.

 _Of fucking course_. He glares at the wall of their living-room, crossing one arm over his chest and tucking his hand under his left elbow. “The appointment is at 18h15! How much more time do you _need_?”

Unbelievable. They’ve picked that particular appointment because they knew it’d work well with Eliott’s schedule — a schedule that is in large part composed of work-days ending at _17h00_. Now it’s almost 17h30 and it’s a given that they won’t be at the hospital in time, no matter if Eliott finds a way to pop up here, in the middle of their apartment, in the next fifteen minutes.

Eliott seems to ponder his answer, either because he truly has no idea or because he knows Lucas won’t like the answer. Either fucking way, he hates it. He’s about to start pestering some more when his husband starts talking again. “I don’t know, hm,” Eliott says carefully, and _uh-oh_ , that’s the tone he uses when ‘hm Lucas, baby, there’s a possibility I may have screwed up with the washing machine’. _Amazing_. “It’s, uh, it’s difficult to say. They insisted to review some works from my project team, you know those inspired by a night-”

“A night in Tokyo, yeah, I know,” Lucas completes with a small sigh.

Eliott has been hit by a wave of inspiration after watching a documentary on the Japanese town a few months ago and ever since he’s been working so much to put together a whole atmosphere, going as far covering their living-room and his office at work with printed pictures of the town, why does it have to be _today_ of all day that he gets called in to show them?

There’s a small silence, until Eliott breaks it. “Lucas?” he calls out quietly, and he sounds a little nervous. “We’ve already gone through about half of it I’d say, we have a few more boards left but I can tell them I have an emergency.”

“No it’s fine.” _Your daughter meeting her cardiologist isn’t worth shortening a meeting_ , he almost says, but he quickly catches himself. Fuck he’s the worst. When did he become such an ass? He can thank his brain-to-mouth filter for keeping the snide comment in, because he really doesn’t need Eliott to break down right now. His right hand breaks free from under his elbow and rubs his forehead. “You know what, you’re right, I’ll just go to Necker and you’ll join me there whenever you can.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eliott says, “I swear I’ll do my best to be there.”

Considering the Parisian traffic, fat chance it doesn’t happen, but Lucas forces himself to stay positive. He can do that. He’s not even remotely close to what people would call an _optimist_ , but he _can_ be optimistic for the next hour.

“Sure, see you there,” he mumbles, unconvinced, before disconnecting the call with a final exchange of ‘love you’.

Eliott is the person he loves most on this fucking planet — husband of nearly ten years and all — but _God_ he’s too nice. He never knows when and how to say no, which means that he’s never _ever_ on time, and medical appointments are by far his weakest spot.

(Well, appointments in general, to be fair.)

(What can he expect from someone who arrived late on their wedding day?)

(God, he loves him so much but he’s such a dork.)

He tucks his phone in the back pocket of his jeans and exits the living-room, trying his best to avoid the mental image of himself sulking like a 12yo. Come on, he’s 30. He doesn’t _sulk_. At worst he’s annoyed. And anxious. Yeah. Anxious. Anyone in his position would be anxious. He has the right to _be_. After all he’s got a cardiac baby at home, a cardiac baby who needs a check-up.

He makes his way through the flat, padding in the hall until he reaches the last door to the right, just across from their bedroom. Everything is quiet on the other side of the door, which doesn’t really help him feel better. Twisting his mouth in resignation, he pushes it open slowly, letting the warm light of the hall flooding the bedroom as he pads in. His socked feet meet the plushy rug on the floor when he arrives next to the crib, a soft hand trailing over the edge as he rounds it.

As usual, Elina is sleeping on her back, with her two arms thrown on each side of her head.

 _She looks like she’s saying ‘fuck it’,_ he had observed the first time he had seen her asleep, and Eliott had given him a kick of the elbow in the ribs. He had hated every second of the five minutes they had spent watching their prospective child from behind a large window, like she was some kind of zoo animal — she was just so small and so lonely in a crib far too big for Lucas’ taste, no matter how colorful the nursery was and how gentle the people working there were. 

Lucas lets a hand hover above her head, his fingers lightly brushing her hair, combing until she starts to stir a little and lets out faint, sleepy grunts.

“Hi baby,” Lucas whispers gently, a soft smile tugging at his lips.

Elina throws her tiny fist in the air as she wakes. It’s always a stretch to wake her up when she’s so peacefully asleep, and it’s not for nothing that he’s conveniently chosen to believe everyone telling him to let the baby sleep until they wake up on their own. _Consider it payback_ , Basile had suggested once when he tried to make his point crossed. _She keeps you up at night after all._ There are so many wrong things about this that Lucas hadn’t even found it in himself to explain to him why payback with your _baby_ isn’t a thing — one thing, though, is that he doesn’t regret picking Yann as Elina’s godfather.

Keeping a hand on her belly, he uses the other to lower the slatted rail down, making sure that the crib-bumpers don’t get in the way. Like most of their daughter’s bedroom, it fits the theme Eliott has picked for it — navy tones, with sparkles of silver and gold when stars are involved, and touches of orange when some foxes are, for some reason, thrown into the mix. He’s never really understood why foxes would fit a sky/space theme but apparently he’s the only one. Eliott is the kind of dad to think about that, about color-coordinated baby stuff and themed nursery, about cloud-shaped nightlights, about decorating himself the plain white crib they bought because there wasn’t a single one he liked on the market — he just wishes Eliott would be the kind of dad who would also stand his ground a little bit more when it comes to work.

He sighs to himself, and Elina peers at him with sleepy eyes, blinking hard to adjust. Why is he even petty? It’s just a stupid appointment, he thinks as he picks her up. Technically, she no longer needs the hand that automatically flies at the back of her head to keep her neck from wobbling dangerously, but Lucas can’t help it, he’s gotten accustomed to it. He presses a kiss to her temple, now fully covered with chestnut hair. When they first met her, five months ago, she only had a mop of hair on the top of her small head, but soon he’ll be able to do something with it. Maybe put a small hair clip or something to get it out of her face — there were tiny ones at Tape A l’Oeil’s the other day and he had almost melted at the sight. Elina yawns some more as she rests her head on his shoulder, and he motions towards the changing table after checking the time on his phone.

He’s got ten more minutes to pack everything and be ready.

It’s good.

He’s got this.

**THURSDAY, 18:01**

He’s not bitter.

Nope. Not at all.

He’s not mad either. It’s stupid to be mad at your husband. They’re not that kind of couple anyway. They aren’t the kind to be mad at each other. They’ve reached the unattainable level of wholesome that their friends dream about. High school sweethearts turned husbands, two successful jobs (Eliott as a concept artist in a Parisian studio, him as a researcher in the Pasteur Institute), a baby, a flat reasonably big for the three of them and not too expensive (thus preserving them from having to worry every month), and above all, eight years of marriage and not a scratch, not a crack, not a fight — that’s just how perfect it all is. They’re Eliott and Lucas (and Elina).

They’re the Lallemant-Demaury.

So who cares if Eliott is a little late?

It doesn’t matter, he thinks as he taps his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting impatiently for the street-light to go green.

Even if he has to get through this alone, it’s not a problem.

It’s not like they’ve had this appointment for two months now, which is also the last time Lucas has found himself in the 15e, in this exact parking-lot. He throws a quick glance at Elina in the rear-view mirror. She’s busy chewing on her pacifier in her car-seat, eyes closed, but he can tell she’s not asleep. Whenever she does, she does those sucking sounds that sometimes get so loud they can hear it all the way from their bedroom — so much it literally cockblocked them for a while.

He tries to focus on the important thing at hand. His daughter is fine. She’s never been better, even. This appointment is just a check-up. No harm ever comes from a check-up, right? And what if she still has the scar of her open-heart surgery on her tiny body? She isn’t in pain and she won’t even remember it — it will fade away eventually, or so they said. What if he can’t help but check on her breathing every now and then, just because he’s afraid it might quicken all over again? He’s home all fucking day long, it’s not like he’s got anything better to do. That’s what caring for your child means, right?

And he cares about Linou.

So. Yeah.

He’s not mad.

The street-signal goes green and he can finally turn right to engage himself in the closest parking-lot from the Necker Hospital. What kind of hospital doesn’t have a parking lot? _Parisian hospitals_. For fuck’s sake it really is his luck. He’s almost been running late because he had to check and double-check google maps to make sure he remembers where to park — because two months is a long time, and he’s had very little sleep in the end, so he _did_ forget and usually _Eliott_ is good at remembering stuff like these.

 _Because usually we’re together_ , he thinks begrudgingly, making his way inside the underground parking-lot and absently cruising through the rows of car, on the look-out for an available spot. It’s 18h04, he really needs to find one, preferably before he has a nervous breakdown. His eyes stumble on the brake-lights of a pitch-black 5008 slowly leaving its parking spot, and he pulls to a stop, slightly wincing when it’s a little harsher than expected — but Elina is still calm and quiet at the back, so it’s fine. Mostly. Nobody needs to know anyway.

(It’s been his motto for a while.)

(Ever since he became a dad actually.)

(But… yeah. Nobody needs to know.)

He waits for the 5008 to eventually move its _ass_ away to be able to start parking, fingers tapping over the steering-wheel all over again as he grumpily hums the tune on the radio. By the time he’s managed to squeeze his C3 between an ugly brown Nissan Juke and a red pocket sized-car he doesn’t even know the brand of, it’s nearly time for him to start running to get there on time. It’s always when he has to maneuver to get into a parking spot that he misses the DS3 he had to leave behind, a couple of months ago, for a car that doesn’t require him to follow a special training from the _Cirque du Soleil_ to get his daughter in and out — four doors really do save lives.

Elina starts gurgling happily, kicking her limbs impatiently, when he opens the back door to free her from her backseat. There’s the stroller in the trunk, but it’s too late for him to bother taking it out, to Lucas’ dismiss.

(He’s the stroller dad.)

(Eliott is the baby-carrier dad.)

(Which is infinitely easier when you have long-ass legs, he guesses, and that no one risks elbowing the baby in the head.)

He simply grabs the diaper bag and throws it on his shoulder, carrying his daughter on his hip after carefully making sure that neither the pacifier or the plushy baby seal she’s been in love with lately are missing, and that both her shoes are still on, before he slams the door shut and locks the car behind him.

See? It’s all good. He doesn’t even need a husband, he thinks darkly, but ultimately he feels bad and holds Elina a little tighter against himself.

Anxiety makes him an ass: confirmed.

**THURSDAY, 18:32**

He really doesn’t know why he even bothered to be nervous about being late. _All_ fucking doctors in the world are late. He should have known better. He’s been sitting here for half an hour now and frankly he’s starting to wonder how he’s going to keep Elina busy if only for the next five minutes. She’s starting to get fussy into his lap, which means that she’s either grumpy because he woke her up earlier or because she needs to be changed — either way, there’s nothing he can do about it now. That would be his luck if as soon as he stands up and goes to the bathroom, someone calls them in.

So he’s sitting there, trying to keep his 9-month-old baby busy with a fucking baby-seal plushy, mentally praying that she’s simply annoyed and tired (like her dad, actually), when there’s a rustle of clothes somewhere on the side. His head snaps up to find Eliott sighing in relief, like he wasn’t sure he’d find them here — it doesn’t help him feel less prickly about the whole situation.

(And who cares if Eliott is _always_ so beautiful?)

(He’s good at multitasking.)

(He can be mad _and_ enjoy the sight of his husband.)

“Hey, you’re here,” Eliott says, sounding a little breathy, like he’s been running through the maze of hallways that is this stupid hospital.

“Of course, I’m here,” he snorts, focusing back onto Elina while Eliott puts the diaper bags on the floor before sliding in a plastic chair next to his own. “I’m not really the element of surprise in this.”

“Lucas…” He can hear his smile faltering in his voice, and he twists his mouth a little, feeling ashamed of himself.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he says, looking back to Eliott. He cranes his head up for his husband to give him a quick kiss, and Eliott immediately obliges. “How did it go?”

“It was fine I guess,” Eliott admits, shuffling a little closer. Elina has immediately perked up onto his presence and Eliott presses a kiss to the tiny hand which wrapped itself around his thumb. “They seemed to like the few stuff we had to offer and I think I might be able to sell them the color palette, so it’s already a win.” Elina has a little catlike laugh and it draws a blinding smile onto Eliott’s face. He leans forward and picks her from Lucas’ lap. “Hello, sweetie,” he singsongs, pecking her little nose before sitting her on his lap.

Lucas observes them in silence. “I’m happy for you,” he says eventually, forcing a tight smile in Eliott’s direction.

Eliott looks up and shoots him his shinning grin, the one that makes him all soft and crinkly-eyed. “How did your day go?”

And… his annoyance is back. “Thrilling,” he replies darkly. “We finished the incredible Animal Carnival story, and I did laundry. A day filled with accomplishments and excitements, you can bet.”

Eliott is combing Elina’s hair with his fingers, turning a slightly embarrassed face towards him. “You know you don’t have to do that, I’m on laundry duty this week.”

“And what do I do when she spits up on me?” he scoffs. “Pile everything up in the middle of our bedroom and just wait for everything to smell like someone has puked in there?”

He knows he’s being stupid but he just can’t help it — he can’t _control it_. It’s like some fucking dumbass has possessed his body, like his stupid brain-to-mouth filter has stopped working. Eliott doesn’t have much difficulty spotting a snide comment when he hears one, and he cocks his head to the side while Elina is busy toying with the lapels of her dad’s jacket. “Lucas, what’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong,” he grumbles, looking away. “It’s just that you can’t just postpone laundry for ten hours when it smells-”

“I’m not talking about laundry,” Eliott cuts him off gently, and he puts a hand on his thigh to get his attention back to him until they make eye-contact. “You know you can tell me everything, right?”

Eliott’s eyes are simultaneously the best and the worst things that happened to Lucas’ life. He’s always been a smooth-talker and a smooth-liar, always finding the right thing to say to get out of messy situations, but it all flew out of the window the day he met Eliott, in the common room. At best, ever since then, he’s been able to offer cheeky comments and occasional acts of bravery — like having sex in the aforementioned common-room, for instance.

But lying to Eliott?

Trying to _deceive_ Eliott?

It’s always been off the table.

“I miss my job,” he blurts out. “And I’m- I’m sorry for snapping at you, I know it was the deal, and it’s got nothing to do with Elina.” He reaches out and caresses her cheek softly. “She’s the most precious thing in the world to me, I’d never regret having her in my life. It’s just-”

“Hey, you don’t have to do that with me. Okay?” Eliott interrupts again. He adjusts his position on the plastic chair, sitting Elina with her back against his chest. “I know you love her, and I know it’s not the problem. We’re talking about you right now.”

He presses his lips together tightly, until they’re only a thin line. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” he sighs, shoulders slumping a little. “For five months, everything has been about baby food and quarters of nights, and afternoons sliced in six because of the naps and all the times she wakes-up in-between. I just want to talk to adults, you know? Real adults.” He has a nervous snort. “There’s this mom who’s constantly baby-talking at the park and it drives me fucking insane. I swear it keeps me up at night.” When he looks back up, he sees that Eliott’s face starts crumpling from contained laughter. “Don’t laugh at me!,” he whisper-screams, offended.

His husband hides his chuckle behind a small coughing fit. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, becoming serious all over again — which Lucas appreciates. “Why did you never say anything before?”

“Because that was the deal,” he insists.

That’s what they had decided, the very day they had decided to become Linou’s parents. She had been abandoned by her mother as soon as she had been born because of a stupid heart-condition, and when they were contacted by the ASE to (maybe) become her parents, they had instantly agreed that, in the event of them _actually_ becoming her dads, one of them would stay home for a six-month parental leave to help her settle in and watch over her. That was the deal, and Lucas had agreed wholeheartedly. He couldn’t just backtrack two months in, particularly because they had monthly visits from the social worker. How could he ever manage to convince anyone that he really wants to be a dad if he says that spending time with his baby gets on his nerves?

He’s not sure he could survive it, if anyone tried to take Elina away from them now.

“I know you love your job and I didn’t want you to feel bad about going to work every day,” he admits, and eventually he sighs, shaking his head. “It’s just that I’m really not cut for being a stay-at-home parent and it’s starting to drive me nuts.”

Now he officially feels like the worst dad ever.

On top of feeling like a fraud 90% of the time.

Eliott slides an arm behind his shoulders and pulls him closer until he can press a kiss to his temple. “First of all,” he whispers, “don’t keep things bottled up. Alright? You know it doesn’t sit well with you.” Lucas lets out a small snort. “Second of all, I have to confess one thing,” Eliott says, and he pauses when Lucas looks back at him, wincing a little bit. “I was glad when the coin chose you.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Really?”

Eliott pulls Elina back closer against him. “Yeah. At first I was kind of envious, because she kept freaking out whenever I came in the room, and she wouldn’t want to snuggle with me and you were spending so much time with her,” he says, and Lucas has to protest.

“She didn’t freak out.”

“That’s your opinion on it,” Eliott scoffs, but he doesn’t seem mad about it.

For at least three weeks, if not a month, Elina would stop laughing whenever Eliott would enter her visual field. She wouldn’t eat whenever he would try to giver her the bottle and she kept staring at him all the time. It took a while for them to figure out — or at least for Lucas to figure out, because Eliott was still not buying it —, but he eventually realized that Elina’s only problem with her dad was his eyes. Apparently, his baby daughter was mesmerized by Eliott’s gaze, and frankly he couldn’t blame her. _Been there, done that_ , he would quietly tell her whenever she’d stare at Eliott a little too long, and inevitably Eliott would huff and leave the room until Lucas stopped laughing.

“I just started counting all the stuff I wouldn’t get to see, you know, all the first times you’d witness,” Eliott says again, waving the baby seal for a grinning Elina to reach out for it. “But then we started working on the project and it was so amazing and exciting all over again, and I was glad I got that opportunity.” He leans a little bit closer and Lucas reciprocates. “I was selfish, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re not selfish, we both agreed to that,” Lucas protests, annoyance long faded. He starts rubbing Elina’s foot and she greets him with a huge smile, babbling things and nearly causing the pacifier to tumble off.

Next to them, the door opens and a couple with a kid who’s probably at least 8 exits the office, small-talking on their way out with the cardiologist. They’re busy shaking hands when Eliott tugs at his sleeve, drawing his attention back on him. “We’re gonna have to put a pin on that,” he says, “but don’t think you’re off the hook. There’s a long talk about feelings and personal thoughts ahead of you tonight.”

He winces, but it’s more to make Eliott cringe than anything else. His husband huffs and gives him a playful slap on the arm as he stands up, still holding Elina against his chest. Lucas leans down to picks up the diaper bag.

 _Feelings_.

Yeah. He can probably do that — as long as it’s with Eliott, that is.


End file.
